Director of Heritage Management

Barbara Cummins
Director of Heritage Management

Barbara Cummins joined Historic Scotland in 2009 and was appointed to the post of Director of Heritage Management in 2011.

Prior to joining the agency, she spent 18 years working in Scottish local government, including spells at Falkirk and Stirling councils. Most recently, she worked in the City of Edinburgh Council’s planning department, where she led the team responsible for the city centre and listed building applications.

Barbara has extensive experience in dealing with significant and high profile planning cases within local government.  She also worked on secondment to Scottish Government to help draft the secondary legislation and regulations that flowed from the Planning Etc (Scotland) Act 2006.  

Born in Northern Ireland, Barbara spent many happy family holidays visiting sites in Scotland with two geography teachers for parents.  Her interests include a love of Manchester United, travel, gardening and stained glass.